Build your essential skills and make first steps towards a career in marketing this way.
Marketing (especially digital marketing) is quite a promising field today and many think about becoming such an expert. Some people have a smooth career start and some may face different obstacles. So, this article will not give you a universal clue for success but here you will find some tips that would be helpful for you to build essential skills and make first steps towards a career in marketing.
- Complete an online course on marketing
This is a simple yet effective way to start off. Today there are many online courses that prepare you to jump right into marketing activities. You don’t need to have a university degree to work as an online marketer. You can learn the basics in a few months and then, start applying your knowledge on real-world tasks which is a much more effective way than any university theory.
- Don’t wait for the tasks, create cases by yourself
Do you think that a blank CV is quite a problem on the way to finding a job? It’s not if you have a portfolio which is key to get your place in marketing. To create this, first, you need to find something to promote. This can be just a product or service you like or some business of your friends. For instance, you can promote a local bakery you visit each Saturday or a Youtube channel of the person who lives next door.
Before you start, discuss all the details with the person whose business you are planning to advertise. Don’t expect to get paid (however, as a bonus, you might get such an offer) but do this just for the experience.
Then, create a plan and stick to it. Find some good examples, think about your target audience, check out some business cases on the internet. All this will help you to create a campaign which later, you will add to your portfolio.
- Do a research
So, let’s dive more deeply. Before you create the plan for your campaign, you need to do the research. This is where all the huge tasks in marketing start. You need the research to identify successful cases to take some insights from, the audience your product or service will be targeted at, who your competitors are and what they do in terms of marketing and, finally, what value can the business you are promoting bring to the customer as well as it’s strong and weak sides (or SWOT).
Only after you find this out, you can craft your plan of the first marketing and start implementing it.
- Turn your creativity on
Online marketing is not necessarily a set of algorithms that are working. However, marketing is always about being creative as well as flexible as the modern world changes every day and the principles that seem like axioms can become outdated tomorrow. Marketing is also about building hypotheses and setting up experiments to confirm or decline your assumptions.
This is where you can take advantage of your zero experience – you can bring a fresh look to the table where people with a solid background in it can repeat the same tactics and concepts again and again.
So, bring new ideas, test them and take lessons out of it.
- Learn on someones’ cases
Remember that each achievement is a combo of proficiency, dedication, ability, connections, and sheer luck. To fully comprehend why the case was successful, you should analyze it very carefully as well as to conduct the research (yes, you can’t forget about the research) on the author. Don’t aim at repeating the way of others; however, reading might be inspiring and can teach you a lot.
3. Search for a trainee position
Here we come to the most effective tip in terms of learning progress yet hard to get: getting a trainee job in a real company. Nothing will give you a better push than working with a real team on a real project with real responsibility.
Here, just sending your blank CV might not help. Add an individualized motivation letter explaining why you want to start your career exactly in this particular company. However, it would be better if you go beyond.
Try to analyze some marketing activities this company has – check out their social media accounts, take a look at their website and find out some issues or inconsistencies it might have, etc. After this, try to come up with recommendations on how to improve it and then, send it along with your CV and the motivation letter.
- Be persistent
I know how taught it can be to start off your career and how scary it might be to fail. However, this is the way everyone follows, as every person can be many times rejected before getting the dream job. It’s okay and the main task here is not to lose your motivation and belief in your power. This is just a way to gain experience. And remember, if something comes too easy to you, you won’t appreciate it.
Finally
Starting a career in marketing might sound like a vague plan but it’s not if you firmly decide on your next steps. Experience is valuable but creativity, hard work, persistence and willingness to learn are much more important to find a job in marketing and generally to reach your goals. So, this is time for you to make your first steps and build your experience!
